URL Shortening Guidance

It looks nicer. The masking URL certainly looks a whole lot prettier than the ugly ClickBank link it replaces.

It's shorter. Affiliate links can be so long that they wrap around to take up more than one line on your webpage. This can be disastrous if the link is broken in order that clicking on it only puts the first line in the browser address bar. Which will certainly cause a FILE NOT FOUND error, so your prospective customer gives up in exasperation.

It looks less like an affiliate link. In our example above, the original link is a bit obvious. Some ornery people just cannot stand the concept that someone they don't even know is making money from their purchase, even though they don't save any money by not using your link.

It looks less hazardous. Some nervous nellies won't click the link at all because they're concerned about viruses, phishing, porn, etc. Cloaking affiliate links makes the URL look like it is a page on your site, so they feel safer in clicking on it.

Google dislikes affiliate links. It is against their "guidelines" for a site to exist for the primary purpose of selling someone else's product. Should they get a complaint, or else believe that your web page violates this policy, they can de-index you - in other words, your pages won't be listed in their search engine results!

It's easier to modify. There can come a time when the product you're promoting is suddenly moved to another page on the affiliate site. If this happens, your cloaking link must be changed in only one place - it's cloaking page. It's masking URL need not be changed on every page where it appears on your web page.

best link shortener (pop over to this web-site) piracy is less likely. This really is perhaps the most important reason for masking links. An unscrupulous internet marketer may see your affiliate link, and substitute his own affiliate link for yours. Then he can get the product at a discount - and you lose your commission.